President Donald Trump recently came off a guilty verdict that found the former president liable for sexual battery and defamation. His CNN town hall Wednesday took viewers down the former president’s rabbit hole on the Jan. 6 insurrection as Trump called the Capitol police officer who fatally shot rioter Ashley Babbitt a “thug.”
Donald Trump makes a bold comment
Trump also falsely claimed the officer, who is Black, went on to brag about shooting Babbitt, which CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins rebuffed.
In a previous question about whether Trump had any regrets about Jan. 6, he listed none, saying it was a “beautiful” day and that protestors were there with “love” in their hearts. In response to another question, Trump also said he’d be “inclined” to pardon “many” of the Capitol rioters who are currently serving time in jail for their offenses.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins turned the conversation to Jan. 6 and why it took so long for Trump to address his supporters who illegally stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election, the racist dog-whistling language ensued.
It was noted that Collins mentioned that “over 140 officers were injured that day,” but Trump was more concerned with Babbitt, an active participant in the Capitol riots who attended it in part because she embraced the far-right QAnon group that pushed the definitively debunked “big lie” conspiracy theory that Joe Biden won the 2020 election because of voter fraud.
“A person named Ashli Babbitt was killed,” Trump responded, ignoring the circumstances under which Byrd shot her to death in the Capitol, later adding, “That thug who killed her, there was no reason to shoot her.”
Trump continued revising history: “He went on television to brag about the fact he killed her.”
Collins quickly corrected Trump, but as history has demonstrated, the truth rarely if ever matters to the former president, who described Babbitt in terms of martyrdom and Byrd as a villain.
